Even if there’s only a small chance of people achieving life extension, the humans currently alive have a pretty long expected life, big enough to make wild animals currently alive less relevant (though concievably there could be other cohorts even more important).
Not that attempts to make a principled distinction between moral treatment of ‘deprivation’ and ‘fulfilment’ or ‘exist’ and ‘already will exist’ don’t seem to be particularly philosophically satisfying or seem to go much beyond restatement of a personal intuition, anyway, in so far as I can tell.
Do you seriously believe that there is a non-negligible chance that any human alive today will be alive in, let’s say, 2000 years? That sounds like wishful thinking to me.
I don’t think classical total utilitarianism is the correct theory of population ethics. If you do, I suppose breeding and wireheading a bunch of rats is a great way to help the world, but that just seems silly.
Lol, I’m glad I was a salient example of someone with silly beliefs =P. Just doing my part to push the Overton window.
Strictly speaking, I expect there could be beings that are a lot happier than rats (or any other current living thing), so we should really breed those instead.
No, the negative preference utilitarian version wants to prevent Bob from surviving to have children and numerous future generations (even if their lives are all great overall), so strongly as to overwhelm any horrible thing that happens to Bob, including painfully killing him (or torturing him for thousands of years, if that was instrumentally useful) to prevent his procreation.
This is why we need to implement my own theory, “Negative-Leaning Average Preference Prioritarianism with Time-Discounted Utility for Future Generations and with Extra Points Awarded for Minimizing the Variance of Utilities Among the Present Generation.”
In this particular example, Rawlsianism will also point to making the least well-off better before creating new lives or killing existing ones (though it’s quite possible your stomach wouldn’t be as badly off as the kids with schistosomiasis).
Wishful thinking? Hardly. A 1% chance of being alive in 2000 years is too unlikely psychologically useful to me, but a smallet chance of being around forever is mathematically decisive for the specific stated purpose of making utility calculations.
Alternative approaches to population are even worse because instead of the so-called “repugnant conclusion” (it can be debated) you get the “sadistic conclusion”. Alternatives are not only less principled, but worse (1). None can ever be satisfactory (2).
If you dispense with utilitarian approaches (or at least allow alternatives to contribute), then terraforming or the lack of it is less of a focus.
A Pascal’s mugging is an intentional move by an actor where they are probably deceiving you. The fact that something has a low probability of huge payoff doesn’t make it a mugging and doesn’t imply that we should ignore it.
I don’t think moral uncertainty is a real problem. The slope isn’t uneven; I just believe that suffering is worse than most EAs do, but it would still be a straight line. I also do not support creating new happy beings instead of helping those who already exist and are suffering.
I don’t think “moral uncertainty” is something that can be solved, or even a legitimate meta-ethical problem. You can’t compare how bad something is across multiple ethical theories. Is 1 violation of rights = 1 utilon? There’s also the possibility that the correct ethical theory hasn’t even been discovered yet, and we don’t have any idea what it would say.
Cool. Interestingly, twice you’ve surprised me by endorsing a position that I thought you were repudiating. A straight line in terms of experience and value is exactly what I think of by symmetric utilitarianism, just as puzzling over this question is just what I imagine by thinking moral uncertainty is a problem. The idea that the correct ethical theory hasn’t been discovered yet, if there is such a thing, seems to be the most important source of uncertainty of all to me, though it is rarely discussed.
I believe in a symmetry for people who already exist, but I also think empirically that many common sources of suffering are far worse than the common sources of happiness are good. For people who don’t exist, I don’t see how creating more happy people is good. The absence of happiness is not bad. This is where I think there is an asymmetry.
I don’t even understand what it would mean for an ethical theory to be correct. Does that mean it is hardwired into the physical constants of the universe? I guess I’m sort of a non-cognitivist.
Right, but is that for sources of happiness and suffering that are common among all people who will exist across all time? Because almost all of the people who will exist (irrespective of your actions) don’t currently.
There’s a difficulty that I guess you’d be sensitive to, in that it’s hard to distinguish the absence of happiness from the presence of suffering and vice versa. The difference between the two is not hardwired into the physical constants of the universe, if that is a phrasing that you might be sympathetic to, though no snark is intended.
If you’re non-cognitivist, then you could ask whether you “should” (even rationally or egoistically) act according to your moral perspective. If you choose to live out your values by some description, for some reason, then they’re not going to be purely represented by any ethical theory anyway, and it’d be unclear to me why you’d want to simplify your intuitions in that way.
If you don’t have a child, you are not decreasing your nonexistent offspring’s welfare/preference satisfaction. Beings who do not exist do not have preferences and cannot suffer. Once they exist (and become sentient), their preferences and welfare matter. This may not be hardcoded into the universe, but it’s not hard to distinguish between having a child and not having one.
I meant within one person. If you believe that there is a fundamental difference between intrapersonal and interpersonal comparisons, then you’re going to run into a wall trying to define persons… It doesn’t seem to me that this really checks out, putting aside the question of why one would want simple answers here as a non-cognitivist.
Even if there’s only a small chance of people achieving life extension, the humans currently alive have a pretty long expected life, big enough to make wild animals currently alive less relevant (though concievably there could be other cohorts even more important).
Not that attempts to make a principled distinction between moral treatment of ‘deprivation’ and ‘fulfilment’ or ‘exist’ and ‘already will exist’ don’t seem to be particularly philosophically satisfying or seem to go much beyond restatement of a personal intuition, anyway, in so far as I can tell.
Do you seriously believe that there is a non-negligible chance that any human alive today will be alive in, let’s say, 2000 years? That sounds like wishful thinking to me.
I don’t think classical total utilitarianism is the correct theory of population ethics. If you do, I suppose breeding and wireheading a bunch of rats is a great way to help the world, but that just seems silly.
Lol, I’m glad I was a salient example of someone with silly beliefs =P. Just doing my part to push the Overton window.
Strictly speaking, I expect there could be beings that are a lot happier than rats (or any other current living thing), so we should really breed those instead.
When you’re advocating a reductio ad absurdum, I do wonder if that pushes the overton window backwards.
Bob: “Ouch, my stomach hurts.”
Classical total utilitarian: “Don’t worry! Wait while I create more happy people to make up for it.”
Average utilitarian: “Never fear! Let me create more people with only mild stomach aches to improve the average.”
Egalitarian: “I’m sorry to hear that. Here, let me give everyone else awful stomach aches too.”
...
Negative utilitarian: “Here, take this medicine to make your stomach feel better.”
The medicine is a lethal dose of sedatives.
Negative preference utilitarianism avoids that problem.
No, the negative preference utilitarian version wants to prevent Bob from surviving to have children and numerous future generations (even if their lives are all great overall), so strongly as to overwhelm any horrible thing that happens to Bob, including painfully killing him (or torturing him for thousands of years, if that was instrumentally useful) to prevent his procreation.
This is why we need to implement my own theory, “Negative-Leaning Average Preference Prioritarianism with Time-Discounted Utility for Future Generations and with Extra Points Awarded for Minimizing the Variance of Utilities Among the Present Generation.”
We’ll call it NLAPPTDUFGEPAMVUAPG.
As a classical total utilitarian, I think we should both give medicine to make your stomach feel better AND create more happy people.
Or ideally, we should create people who don’t get stomach aches in the first place.
To the extent this example has force, it seems to push towards prioritarianism rather than negative utilitarianism.
In this particular example, Rawlsianism will also point to making the least well-off better before creating new lives or killing existing ones (though it’s quite possible your stomach wouldn’t be as badly off as the kids with schistosomiasis).
Wishful thinking? Hardly. A 1% chance of being alive in 2000 years is too unlikely psychologically useful to me, but a smallet chance of being around forever is mathematically decisive for the specific stated purpose of making utility calculations.
Alternative approaches to population are even worse because instead of the so-called “repugnant conclusion” (it can be debated) you get the “sadistic conclusion”. Alternatives are not only less principled, but worse (1). None can ever be satisfactory (2).
If you dispense with utilitarian approaches (or at least allow alternatives to contribute), then terraforming or the lack of it is less of a focus.
1) interactive guide to population ethics, ben west http://people.su.se/~guarr/Texter/The%20Impossibility%20of%20a%20Satisfactory%20Population%20Ethics%20in%20Descriptive%20and%20Normative%20Approaches%20to%20Human%20Behavior%202011.pdf 2).http://people.su.se/~guarr/Texter/The%20Impossibility%20of%20a%20Satisfactory%20Population%20Ethics%20in%20Descriptive%20and%20Normative%20Approaches%20to%20Human%20Behavior%202011.pdf
This seems like a textbook case of a Pascal’s mugging.
I would describe my ethical view as negative-leaning (or perhaps asymmetric)), but still broadly utilitarian.
A Pascal’s mugging is an intentional move by an actor where they are probably deceiving you. The fact that something has a low probability of huge payoff doesn’t make it a mugging and doesn’t imply that we should ignore it.
How do you involve moral uncertainty or moral pluralism?
How do you set the scale for happiness and suffering on which moral value is supposed to slope unevenly? (1)
http://www.amirrorclear.net/academic/ideas/negative-utilitarianism/images/graph.png
I don’t think moral uncertainty is a real problem. The slope isn’t uneven; I just believe that suffering is worse than most EAs do, but it would still be a straight line. I also do not support creating new happy beings instead of helping those who already exist and are suffering.
Are you completely certain that you should act according to your moral perspective?
I don’t think “moral uncertainty” is something that can be solved, or even a legitimate meta-ethical problem. You can’t compare how bad something is across multiple ethical theories. Is 1 violation of rights = 1 utilon? There’s also the possibility that the correct ethical theory hasn’t even been discovered yet, and we don’t have any idea what it would say.
Cool. Interestingly, twice you’ve surprised me by endorsing a position that I thought you were repudiating. A straight line in terms of experience and value is exactly what I think of by symmetric utilitarianism, just as puzzling over this question is just what I imagine by thinking moral uncertainty is a problem. The idea that the correct ethical theory hasn’t been discovered yet, if there is such a thing, seems to be the most important source of uncertainty of all to me, though it is rarely discussed.
I believe in a symmetry for people who already exist, but I also think empirically that many common sources of suffering are far worse than the common sources of happiness are good. For people who don’t exist, I don’t see how creating more happy people is good. The absence of happiness is not bad. This is where I think there is an asymmetry.
I don’t even understand what it would mean for an ethical theory to be correct. Does that mean it is hardwired into the physical constants of the universe? I guess I’m sort of a non-cognitivist.
Right, but is that for sources of happiness and suffering that are common among all people who will exist across all time? Because almost all of the people who will exist (irrespective of your actions) don’t currently.
There’s a difficulty that I guess you’d be sensitive to, in that it’s hard to distinguish the absence of happiness from the presence of suffering and vice versa. The difference between the two is not hardwired into the physical constants of the universe, if that is a phrasing that you might be sympathetic to, though no snark is intended.
If you’re non-cognitivist, then you could ask whether you “should” (even rationally or egoistically) act according to your moral perspective. If you choose to live out your values by some description, for some reason, then they’re not going to be purely represented by any ethical theory anyway, and it’d be unclear to me why you’d want to simplify your intuitions in that way.
If you don’t have a child, you are not decreasing your nonexistent offspring’s welfare/preference satisfaction. Beings who do not exist do not have preferences and cannot suffer. Once they exist (and become sentient), their preferences and welfare matter. This may not be hardcoded into the universe, but it’s not hard to distinguish between having a child and not having one.
I meant within one person. If you believe that there is a fundamental difference between intrapersonal and interpersonal comparisons, then you’re going to run into a wall trying to define persons… It doesn’t seem to me that this really checks out, putting aside the question of why one would want simple answers here as a non-cognitivist.